


I'm Gonna Take You

by orphan_account



Series: Psycho Trilogy [1]
Category: Cryaotic (Youtube RPF), JackSepticEye (YouTube RPF), Markiplier (YouTube RPF), Septiplier - Fandom, cryaotic, jacksepticeye, markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Cryaotic - Freeform, Dark Character, Dark!Jacksepticeye - Freeform, Dystopia, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, Inspired by Music, M/M, Multi, Sad, antisepticeye, drones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-14 07:31:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4556016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cry has kept hidden from the Drones for almost a year with some other YouTubers, but when he's taken while scavenging for supplies, Mark is left alone at the colony of YouTubers, hiding from the Drones. Can the colony get Cry back? Or is he doomed to become one of the Drones? (Cryaotic/Markiplier alternating POV. Beginning of a trilogy of books. Based on the song "Psycho" by Muse.)</p><p>EDIT (6/9/16): Sorry for the shortness of Chapter 7! As soon as I can, I'll post the next chapter, and I might just delete that chapter entirely!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Happy Birthday To the Colony

So what. It was the anniversary of the Colony. Cry didn't care. Not one bit, particularly. He hadn't given a single fuck what day he had founded the Colony. He was just happy that people wanted to celebrate the foundation of their only hope against the Drones. The rest of his friends were probably dead, except Jund, who was somehow smart enough to listen to Cry and stay inside the Colony. Cry had decided that Jund wasn't the coolest of his friends, but he was the smartest, and he respected that. He wasn't exactly happy that Jund was the one that fate had chosen Cry to spend the rest of his hell with, but he wasn't going to complain.

But Mark was a different story. Cry didn't mind that he was there at all. He actually was fond of Mark. He had been surprised when he found him, though. Mark had been different than the other colonists.

Cry had found him while scavenging. He had been walking by, and Cry had noticed that he seemed a little out of it. He was limping and his face was covered in various scratches and bruises. Seeing him beat up like that, Cry felt bad. He figured it was only his duty to help Mark out.

Mark was a stubborn bastard.

Cry had walked up to him and said, "Christ, Mark, you look like you've been through hell." He smiled and chuckled a little, knowing full well that Mark HAD been through hell. The Drones were demons themselves.

He pointed toward the close Colony. "You know, if you want, we can move you into the Colony we set up. We'll get you enough food, you can hide from the Drones, and we have lots of other YouTube-"

Mark yelled out "NO!" and began to limp faster, moving past Cry.

He was such a stunning person. Cry didn't want Mark to do this to himself. "Mr. Markiplier, if you so much as limp one more step, I'll drag you to the damn Colony." He didn't want to have to resort to that. Anything but having to make Mark do something against his will. He wanted what was best for Mark. What was best for everyone in that Colony.

Mark simply stared at Cry. There were tears in his eyes, and Cry had just noticed that his glasses were gone. Mark screamed loudly, his voice gruff and intimidating. Cry didn't want the Drones to hear him, so he ran to Mark and covered his mouth, letting him scream into his hand. He knew that this was what was going to make him feel better.

When he finally stopped screaming, Mark moved Cry's hand and said, quietly, "The Drones are tracking me. You don't want me to come into your colony. If I do, you'll be found. I don't want to put any of you in danger."

Even in the most dire of situations, Mark was still putting others before himself. What a selfless way to seal his fate.

Cry looked at him and said, "Well, I don't want you to get fucking shot. Now follow me and I'll find a way to get the Drones off our trail. I'm sure that everything will be fine." Mark stared at him with an expression that said "oh really?", as to indicate that nothing was fine and Cry was being completely stupid, so he followed up with, "Well, as fine as they can get with the current situation we're facing."

And Mark had reluctantly agreed to follow Cry into the Colony. Whether it was because Cry wouldn't stop bothering him about it if he kept saying no or if it was because he had genuinely decided to join the others, he wasn't sure.

\------

Mark was now sitting in the corner, fiddling with a piece of jean fabric Mari Takahashi had torn off of the pair she was wearing.

Mark wasn't celebrating. All of the other colonists were celebrating the birthday of the Colony, and yet there Mark was, being a sourpuss, sulking in the corner. Cry supposed that he was doing the same thing as well, but it was different for him. Cry was always an introvert, so being a social person was never really an option for him. Mark, on the other hand, was an extremely friendly and talkative person that usually got his energy from being around others. Cry knew that the normal Mark would have much rather been partying with everyone else instead of moping around in the corner of the barricades.

This was no time for being an antisocial freak. Cry knew that perfectly well. He sighed. Maybe Mark just needed the right company. Cry grabbed a piece of cake (Rosanna Pansino had made it with some of the ingredients the scavengers had found the last time they went to the store) and walked over to Mark, sitting down beside him and handing him the piece. Mark looked at the cake with a blank expression.

"Jesus, Mark, lighten up. It's a celebration," Cry said, setting the cake down between them. "You really need to be a team player here. You're an extrovert, you can talk to people. Ken is here. So is Felix. It's a Colony holiday."

Mark looked at Cry and said, "I'm not going to lighten up. Not when you and the rest of the colonists know damn well that I shouldn't be here. You know that the Drones are looking for me. You KNOW that. So stop trying to make me feel better. It won't work. I understand that you're trying to make me feel welcome, but while those goddamn monsters are looking for me, I will NEVER feel safe, and I will NEVER feel welcome. Please, just give up trying to make me feel better. I appreciate your concern, but honestly, you might as well just throw in the towel." He had found some spare glasses that looked sort of like his, but they weren't the same. Cry knew that they would never be the same. Mark was so different without his glasses. It was like a part of him was missing sometimes.

Cry didn't care that Mark was resisting his help. He didn't care that Mark was doing his best to push him away. He just wanted to fucking HELP HIM. "Don't give me that crock of shit, Mark Edward Fischbach. You of all people should NEVER tell anyone to give up. You of ALL PEOPLE should know that saying that is only going to make me want to help you more. YOU OF ALL PEOPLE should know that just because someone says they don't want your help, that means they want it even more. I know you want me to help you. I know that you like being here. I know that you want someone to be here for you. And you know that I want to be here for you. So don't give me that bullshit. You need me just as much as I need you, and I need you pretty fucking badly. So get your shit together and celebrate with the rest of the fucking colonists, you ungrateful bastard."

Mark had a smile on his face, and Cry knew that he had at least cheered him up. For once, his eyes shone. Cry liked Mark's eyes. They were the most sincere feature of him. Without his eyes shining, all Cry saw was a hollow shell of a person. And he knew that Mark was so much more than that. Everyone was. They just needed to let themselves shine through.

Something felt right when Cry sat there with Mark. He wasn't sure what it was, but it was something beautiful. Maybe it was just some random feeling of sickness or perhaps a blossoming friendship. Perhaps, Cry had even fallen in love with Mark. Something more than just the feeling you get after helping someone out. Cry was never really sure what this was. He had only felt it one other time in his life, and that was when he fell in love with Cheyenne. He didn't know if this was love. But it sure felt nice.

Mark sighed. "Actually, if you don't mind, I'd rather stay here and talk to you more. I don't really feel like being a social butterfly today." His smile was warm and welcoming, and his eyes were still shining. "I want to get to know you more, Cryaotic. More than just as the one dude who got hammered on my channel and gave me a bunch of ostrich facts."

Cry let out a pretty loud laugh at that. He had almost forgotten that. But he would never forget something like that. It was one of the funniest videos Cry had ever been a part of.

"Yeah... about that. All of those ostrich facts were fake," he replied.

Mark laughed in response. "Oh really? You don't say? I had no idea."

Cry laughed with him for a while. There was nothing better than the ache in your stomach after sharing a good laugh. It was almost as good as the warmth of being near someone you love.

\------

Cry missed Cheyenne so fucking much.

There was a hole in his heart that could never be replaced. Cheyenne had been the love of his life, and now she was dead. Cry forced himself to think the word 'dead' even though it made his throat feel dry and his palms sweaty.

'Dead' was such a final word. He didn't want to have to come to terms with the fact that she was gone. Not that. Anything but admitting to himself that she was gone. There was no greater horror.

Chey had been with him in the Colony, as one of the first members. He had called her, back when cell phones were still being hidden from the Drones, and told her that he was hiding from them. He gave her a location (it was near his house, but not too close as to avoid suspicion, but it was an old abandoned house, the Colony) and told her to walk there. If she would have driven, she would've been pulled over by Drones.

She had listened to him and arrived at the Colony with no hesitation.

Cry had invited her in, kissed her, and told her all about how he had this brilliant idea to live in one of the old abandoned Drone-approved houses. That way, the house wouldn't show up on record and no one would be around to inspect the place. Chey had such big eyes. Bright, shining, and confused when he told her his plans for the Colony.

"But... the others would be the only survivors," she had responded. Cry knew that there wasn't much likelihood that any other YouTubers would drive through Florida, but he could dream.

He had grabbed his computer through the confusion of the first Drone invasion in the town, and, since the Drones hadn't forbidden technology at that point, he found a video camera, told Chey to tell the people where the Colony was, and to ask the important YouTubers to join them. (He was still shy and didn't want to show his face. He supposed old habits died hard.) He uploaded the video and sent the link to all of the YouTube personalities he knew, and then asked Chey for the YouTube personalities he didn't.

When they had sent out the link, Chey hugged him tightly and lied with him on the floor of the withered building, and she asked him a question that he would never forget. "Why did this have to happen to us?"

Truth be told, he had never given her a proper answer.

Maybe he would visit the makeshift grave he had given her in the backyard and tell her what he thought. He didn't know.

Chey had stayed with him for 2 months. In that time, Rosanna Pansino had driven across the country and gotten to Florida, keeping her roomies Dodger and Husky in tow. The rest of the Late Night Crew had also shown up by that time, and Pewds (bringing Marzia, Ken, Toby Turner, and Jack Douglass) had also showed. The Colony was getting bigger. Cry thanked God that the house was big enough to handle the amount of people. Many had to sleep on the floor, but they didn't seem to mind it much.

And then the Droids returned.

They had tracked the video Cry had posted to that location. Cry supposed he should've been less obvious with that video. He had been stupid to think that the Drones wouldn't find it. He was lucky that he had sent the links and gotten responses from almost everyone he had sent it to at that point. Otherwise, things might have been a lot different than they were then.

Everything in Cry's memory from that night was a blur. He had been too focused on trying to save his friends and getting everyone out of the house to pay much attention to anything.

"Everyone evacuate! Go out through the backyard! They won't find you guys in the woods! GO!" Cry yelled, making sure that everyone had followed in line out of the house. When he saw Chey inside of the house, he yelled, "Chey! What the FUCK are you doing? Get out of here! You have to leave! Come on!"

Chey had tears in her eyes. Her glasses added a beautiful glint to them, and she said, "I love you... But I don't want to live in this world where nothing is sacred. Please forgive me. Just go."

"Chey, I'm not going to leave without you. Please just follow me! Don't do this to me!" Cry felt his voice cracking and his knees shaking, but he didn't give a shit. He looked at Chey and said, one last time, "I fucking love you."

Chey had said "I love fucking you", which normally would have made Cry laugh his ass off, but today wasn't one of those days. Cheyenne, making a joke of it, even in her final moments. What a fucking nerd. Cry was lucky to have gotten to call her his girlfriend. He should have been able to marry her or save her from herself, but unfortunately, fate wasn't that forgiving.

He watched the Drones come in, and he watched them grab Chey's arms and bring her to her knees. She resisted till the end. She was so strong-willed. Cry half expected her to manage to struggle her way out of their grasp and run out in the knick of time. That wasn't the case.

As he had watched from the small field of vision he had from far away, looking through the window, he watched one of them put their gun to the back of her head. He was too stunned and scared to move his eyes away. He saw her fly forward, a spray of blood and gray matter trailing behind her, as she died. At least it killed her quickly, and painlessly. Cry saw her glasses slide down the floor, to where Cry could actually run back in and grab them before Drones would even notice he was there.

And that's what he did. He needed to keep something of hers in order to remind himself of her. She was the only one that Cry had ever loved so deeply, and lost so quickly. She was the only person that Cry had ever fought to keep, and watched helplessly as he let go.

Those glasses were a constant reminder that she was still there, and she was going to fight with him.

Those glasses were his motivation to kill every single fucking Drone he ever came across.

\------

He snapped back to reality. He had never wanted to start thinking about Chey. Doing so was too much for him. He couldn't keep reminding himself about everything that had happened. He wasn't strong enough for that. He sighed as he looked back to Mark.

Mark had apparently been lost in his own head as well. He was staring at the wall opposite them, as people went by. Cry kind of just wanted to keep looking at him. He wondered what he was thinking about. Maybe he had a story like Cry did. Maybe Mark had lost someone important to him, too. Maybe they were two of a kind. Maybe they could help each other come to terms with the hell that surrounded them.

Cry tapped on Mark's shoulder, and Mark suddenly shook his head a few times. He then turned to look at Cry and said, "Oh, sorry. I was... my mind just kinda floated off. Sorry."

"No worries. I was thinking about something else, too. It's alright. Well, what should we talk about? I mean, you're the one that wanted to talk to me. I'm really not that interesting. Just another person trying to survive in this shithole world we're living in."

"Yeah, I'm not interesting either. I mean, other than the fact that I've got a Drone bullet stuck in my leg. But that's really nothing special. I mean, it's just like any other bullet."

So THAT was why Mark had been limping when he had first saw him. At least he was walking normally again. He was glad that Mark's leg had gotten better, but that Drone bullet should've been removed. "Jesus Christ, man! You should've told me when I saw you first. I would've had someone try to remove that. Holy shit, you're a badass!"

Mark shrugged. "I'm not really. I mean, it's just a flesh wound."

Cry laughed. He was glad that he had these conversations with Mark. He was a funny person, and there was a refreshing quality to it. It felt like they had known each other for years. And it was great.

As they kept talking, Cry suddenly felt someone accidentally brush against his side as they went to sit down. It was Mari. "Hey, guys. The rest of us were wondering why you were sitting all by yourselves over here, so we decided that we all were going to come over here. After all, we're going to sing 'Happy Birthday', and it wouldn't be the same without some kickass baritone."

Both Cry and Mark looked to each other with a smile on their faces, and then to Mari. "Awesome! Come, join us, let's all just be weirdos and celebrate by sitting in a corner!" Mark said. Mari laughed and Cry's smile widened.

Then, everyone was sitting in a giant, lopsided circle around them, with Toby sitting next to Mark and Mari sitting next to Cry, all of them joining hands. Cry looked to Mark and shrugged as he extended his hand in his direction, and Mark grabbed it, interlocking their fingers together, even though none of the others were joined at the fingers. Cry felt a small blush coming on. "Well, who's starting this?" he asked, looking over to Mari.

She looked over to Toby, who began. "Haaaaaaaa-" He waited until everyone was singing with him in order to finish the word Happy.

Suddenly, everyone was singing, but not too loudly. Cry looked over at Mark, listening for his voice in particular. Halfway through, Cry had to swallow back tears, as he realized something. He stopped, but joined back in, trying not to give away any indication of sadness.

Mark was wearing Cheyenne's glasses.


	2. It Was A Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark has nightmares about reliving his experience being taken by the Drones, and when he wakes up, the only person awake to talk him down from his fear is Cry. He tries to explain everything to him, but he can't shake the lingering feeling that there's something still tying him to the Drones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is going to be a Mark-centric one, and then next chapter will switch back to Cry. Hopefully you guys enjoy!  
> I made a playlist of songs that fit with the themes in this story, so if you guys want to listen to that as you read along, I'll leave the link below!
> 
> https://play.spotify.com/user/1261400532/playlist/1TG1zohUcgG4lo8fK2vW51

When Mark opened his eyes, he saw a bright, translucent light from above him. He wasn't sure if this was heaven or hell, and he didn't particularly care to find out. There was nothing more to really say about it, only that it was bright and hurt Mark's eyes. He noticed that his glasses were gone. Whatever. He had to focus. Think of a way to escape.

This was insane.

His back ached, and when he looked at his leg, he felt like vomiting. Bullet wound. He sighed. This was bad. This was very bad. He was trapped inside a Drone facility. He couldn't believe how reckless he had been. He should have known better than to get drunk and stumble back to his house. How the actual hell had he ever thought that was a good idea? Well... he was drunk.

How had he been so dumb?

He felt dizzy. His head was spinning. Was it the alcohol still in his system or was it because of the Drone drugs in his body? He couldn't tell, and frankly, he still didn't give a shit. Either way, he had been really stupid to be so careless. He wondered where they found him and why they decided to take him all the way to Headquarters. Why was he such a priority? He was just a drunken, blathering idiot to them, as far as he knew.

He let out a large breath. Drones were everywhere, so he tried to make it as quiet as possible. He knew he had to get out of here, some way or another. Of course he had decided to stumble back to his house, and of course they had shot him in the leg.

Looking around the facility was... it was too bright. It was like everything was taken straight out of a futuristic movie. Too much white, everywhere. He couldn't stand it. It was sickening. Everything shone like it was underneath a spotlight. Spic and span, like something out of a furniture catalog of doom. He wanted to wreck the place, but with the state of his leg, and the fact that he would most surely be killed if he did so much as lay a finger on their beautiful torture instruments, he decided it was best to leave them be. What the hell kind of place were the Drones running, anyway? It was so cliche, a big dystopian ripoff of Divergent, or The Hunger Games, or something. The Drones really had a flair for the basics, obviously.

As Mark tried walking on his wounded leg, he felt a sharp pain shoot right up the bone, throughout the rest of his body. Maybe he shouldn't try to move it quite yet. But he needed to get out of here. And fast.

"Fuck," he muttered, under his breath, hoping that his small curse wouldn't alert any Drones outside his door.

The room looked like a hospital room, only there were no IVs or monitors or anything. Just a hospital bed, a chair, a television (no doubt for the friendly Drone-approved programming filth they showed to kids nowadays), and various devices for the Drones to play with. He felt hopeless staring at all the things they had laid out in store for him. When Jack had been taken by the Drones the first time (he had been taken another time and never returned), he had said that he hadn't seen that many torture devices, maybe a total of 5, and they had appeared relatively harmless.

But from what Mark saw of HIS selection, these were far from harmless.

The room felt like it was spinning around him, like he was in a terrible teacup ride. He felt tears welling up in his eyes, but he forced himself to choke them down. He couldn't let the Drones see any signs of weakness from him, otherwise they would use that and make his life even more of a living hell than had already been with them breathing down his neck at every turn.

He kept breathing in and out, each one getting longer and shakier. He felt the panic slowly starting to seep in. He was never going to make it out of the Drone facility! How had he ever convinced himself that he was? He really needed to stop making up these fantasies in his head and start thinking much more logically. He was never going to get out of this place. He was going to end up like Jack and tempt fate only to realize that there was no escape from the inevitable. Plus, even if he did get out, he was still going to be monitored by the Drones. He would be found again anyway. It was the only thing in his life that was certain.

He let the existential crisis finally sink in, and he let out another sigh, this time, louder than before. He didn't care if the Drones heard him. Maybe he should yell out as loud as he could. It wasn't going to make a difference when he was going to be killed anyway. He smiled, thinking back on his life. He figured he had done pretty well. He'd met Jack, after all.

He had really loved Jack, too.

Everyone he had once been with during the beginning of the invasions was now either dead or under Drone control, and either way, they weren't coming back. He had known some amazing people in his life, and now all of them were gone. He had nobody else. Maybe his drunken stumbling back to his house was more of a cry for help or a suicide wish than anything else. Maybe he just wanted to end everything. Maybe he was going to give up. Maybe he was going to surrender and let the Drones do what they wanted with him. Maybe he just didn't care anymore.

And then he realized something: he wanted to live so fucking badly that it hurt.

He sat there, reminding himself that he was going to live, and that no matter what, he was going to keep fighting, even if he stopped thinking that he could get through it. Until they ended his life for him, he was going to live it, and he was going to make damn sure that he was going to live this all to the fullest. Nothing was ever going to stop him, save for death itself. He wasn't afraid of it. He wasn't afraid of being killed for what he believed in. He wasn't afraid of being brutally beaten and kicked until he no longer felt the determination in his gut to keep living. He wasn't afraid of dying anymore. He was ready to embrace it, but for what it was worth, he was pretty stubborn and ready to kick the ass of anything that stood in his way.

He kept breathing in and out, as he kept trying to hype himself up enough to start kicking some ass and taking some names. But with a bullet in the leg, he wasn't exactly sure how much determination he needed to actually DO that, but it couldn't hurt to try.

Actually, scratch that. It definitely COULD hurt him to try.

Maybe he WAS hopeless.

He groaned and laid back on the bed. He didn't even notice how thin the mat on the table was, and how hard he hit it. That was how completely dull and numb he was. He tried his best not to let out another noise that loudly, because he didn't want to direct any Drone attention to his general area. He needed to keep quiet, so that someone that knew how to work the torture devices over on the table.

He lied there, looking up at the bright white ceiling, remembering what once was and what could've been, had Jack not been taken by the Drones.

Well, it wasn't actually Jack's fault, he had actually been pretty careful, all things considered. Mark and him had been together when he was captured. Both he and Jack were sitting together in a secret bunker that only the most observant of all people could ever detect. Them, Bob, Wade, and Molly had all been there, but Bob, Wade, and Molly had went scavenging in the closest food store in order to give them enough food to survive for another week. So Mark and Jack were alone. Mark was by the door, making sure that nobody walking past would happen to accidentally stumble in, and Jack was sitting farther away, checking the inventory of food they already had and the rest of their supplies. They needed all the supplies they could get, in order to live their lives Drone-free.

But Jack was always an adventurous sort. And even in a crapsack world where nothing was sacred, he still wanted to have fun. And so he finished counting the inventory, then turned to Mark, walking over to where he was, standing on the ground underneath where he was standing on the ladder. Mark looked down for a split-second, then reminded himself to pay attention to the door. It only took a split-second for Drones to throw it open and invade their once private space.

Jack grabbed onto Mark's hand and said, "You know, I've always wondered how good of a dancer you were." He ran his thumb across the top of Mark's hand, and Mark felt his stomach fluttering, like a million butterflies had just been released inside of it. Jack had that effect on him, even after having been together for almost two years. Mark was never one to pass up on a cheesy, romantic moment, so he took a look down at Jack, then back to the door, then he removed his hand from the door: which was the nail in the coffin, really.

"I'm going to warn you, I'm NOT that good of a dancer. I can step on your toes from almost any angle of my feet," Mark replied, taking Jack's other hand.

Jack let out a clear, loud laugh, one of the many that had ultimately made Mark fall in love with him, as he remembered, "Oh yeah, the damn foot thing!" He waited for his laughter to subside before continuing. "Well, I'll make it a priority not to make it so you have to completely turn your feet in a 180."

Mark laughed in response, before he bowed down at Jack. "Shall we then?" he asked, in a snooty tone.

Jack bowed back, and in a tone just as snooty as Mark's, if not more so, replied, "Why yes we shall." And then they got into position before beginning to waltz around the ground. 

Jack was surprisingly very good. He was graceful, and he didn't even have to look at their feet. He was even good at leading Mark along with him. As he kept taking steps, he gracefully pulled Mark into them, not making him feel forced at all. He felt like he was actually moving along with him, at a comfortable pace. Jack looked into his eyes, with a huge, dorky grin on his face, and Mark suddenly fell back in love all at once. Jack's eyes were bright and full of wonder.

The way they always should be.

Mark suddenly felt a big boost of confidence as he tried to spin Jack around, and Jack seamlessly turned with him. He let himself laugh a little as Jack got closer to him, and once Jack had turned back out and returned to their original position, he dipped him down.

There was that undeniably bright light shining in his eyes, and Mark knew that if he didn't kiss him right then, he would never get that amazing of an opportunity again. It was too perfect. He kept Jack there, suspended with nothing but his arms to hold him in place, and he slowly leaned forward, looking into his eyes. When their lips connected, he knew that there was no turning back now. He was too far gone. Jack had every single part of him, and he was helpless to stop him from becoming the thing his world revolved around.

But that bliss didn't last for long. He was greeted to the real world by the loud, blaring sound of heavy steps against the wooden entrance over the bunker. He jumped a little, disconnecting their lips, but not letting go of Jack. "What the hell is that?" Jack asked, in a whisper. Mark shrugged in response, not even looking at Jack, instead choosing to focus his attention on the ladder leading to the entrance to the bunker.

And that was when the Drones suddenly poured into the small underground space. One of them had managed to break the board (although that was to be expected, since they were extremely advanced in almost every way, and advances in armor would only follow suit) and they started flooding in relentless waves.

Mark, still with arms wrapped around Jack, began to quickly get him to stand up straight and start running. "Jack, come on!" he yelled, even though he knew no other place to go, save for the small corridors that he and Wade had thought to dig in case of an emergency escape.

Jack followed, as Mark released his grip on him, preferring to hold his hand to lead him to the escape.

He wanted to get Jack into the escape first, in the case that if the Drones got to them before both could manage to wedge themselves in, they would take Mark instead. "No, Mark, you go first. I know that you want to be the hero, but you can't. Let me do this," Jack replied.

Mark shook his head. "No, if we start bickering, they'll take both of us. Which is why--"

"YOU need to go. Trust me. I'll be alright. I can kick some serious arse in there." He flashed Mark a small, sad smirk, that could've broken Mark's heart given any other, non-life threatening circumstances. Mark only had a split second before deciding. He began crawling in, making sure to start making room for Jack as soon as he possibly could. When he did, Jack started crawling in as well.

He might have been able to get inside, if only they had had a little more time.

Mark saw Jack being dragged out of the hole, and he grabbed onto Jack's hand instinctively. "NO!" he yelled, loudly, given the confined area. Jack grunted as he struggled to break free from the grasp of the Drones.

"Mark, let go!" he yelled, finally starting to slow down his constant struggle.

"Are you fucking kidding me? If I let go, they'll KILL you!"

"They're gonna kill me either way!"

There was an eerie silence for a short second as Mark tried to process what Jack had just told him. He couldn't bear the thought of ever having to say goodbye. He had just gotten him, he didn't want to lose him. He choked back tears as he released his grip on Jack's hand. He would rather have the possibility of the Drones treating him better because of less resistance than having them treat him worse because of Mark's stupid actions.

Mark started crawling as quickly as possible, and he was so glad that the Drones had decided to stop chasing him.

But he would never forget that day. Jack had promised him that he would get out. And he had promised that he would kick their asses.

But, as Mark had began to find out, promises were easily broken.

\----------

Mark opened his eyes, in a panicked sweat. It was that stupid nightmare again. He looked around him, hoping that his gasp hadn't alerted anyone else in the colony. As he sat upright, he continued looking around. It was dark, and he had to squint to even be able to possibly decipher who all was around him. Everyone was asleep. He recognized Rosanna Pansino from over by the window, the moonlight streaming in made her easy to spot. She had fallen asleep hugging Kurt Hugo Schneider tightly. Not far from them, there was Mari, and Joven, but they weren't together (not in the sense of Ro and Kurt at least).

He kept looking until he noticed a pitch black figure sitting upright as well, sitting awkwardly, completely on their toes. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as the image got clearer. He still couldn't make out the facial features, but he could tell that it was a guy.

"Mark?" the figure asked, in a low whisper. It was Cry. It had to be--nobody else in the colony had a voice quite like that. "You up?"

He licked his lips before answering. "Yeah, it's me. I'm awake. I was just..." he let out a breathy chuckle before continuing, "I had a nightmare."

Cry stood up and carefully walked over to where Mark was, sitting down next to him. "Don't worry, we're fine. We don't have to worry about Drone patrols for another hour at least."

Mark let out a large breath. "What time is it, anyway?" he asked, again rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

"Uh... somewhere between 1 and 2 in the morning?"

"Oh shit. I really shouldn't be up then. I was just... I..." Mark stopped himself before trying to explain himself. How the hell could he tell Cry that he was living through losing someone he had truly been in love with, to the one thing he truly hated? "Never mind," he interjected. "It's stupid. I shouldn't have been so scared."

Cry shook his head. "No, it's fine. I'm sure whatever it was gave you good reason. After all, look at this. This is a crapsack world, with nothing but gloom to comfort us. I mean, nightmares are pretty much the norm." He let out a small laugh at that, and Mark kind of did as well. Being around Cry was calming, in a way. He was glad that Cry was there to talk him down. It was always a good thing to trust someone, especially in the eerie way that Mark trusted Cry. He didn't even know him well personally, and he was already completely sure that he was safe putting his life in Cry's hands.

So Mark pondered telling Cry for an entirety of two seconds before coming clean.

Everything, down to the details. Especially those details. He hated being able to remember exactly how bright Jack's eyes were, and the small song that Jack had been humming under his breath as he tangoed across the room with him. He hated seeing that small, heartbreaking smirk over and over in his head every single night. He couldn't stand hating things about his time spent with Jack.

And he cried. Oh God, how he cried. He eventually ended up resting his head on Cry's shoulder throughout the story. And Cry nodded as he listened, not interjecting in his story. He just listened to what Mark was saying and took everything to thought and heart. That was the best thing about him, in Mark's opinion--you could tell him anything, even something that he didn't even agree with personally, and he would still listen to you and take into consideration all of your small points. Mark wrapped up the story, still in tears, but his voice was no longer as shaky as it had been originally. "I can't stand having to live with that every single time I close my eyes, Cry... it's like a constant Hell. I just live my worst nightmare, not being able to do anything as everything I had was taken away from me."

Cry nodded, patting the side of Mark's head with his hand (which, now that Mark mentioned it, was actually not only very awkward, but it was rather adorable). "Don't worry, I understand you. I had the same thing happen to me when they killed Cheyenne."

Mark's eyes widened. He didn't know that Cry's girlfriend had been killed by the Drones. He knew that Cry had a girlfriend, and he knew that she wasn't in the colony, but Mark had never really put two and two together in that sense. "Oh my God, that must be ten times worse, I'm so sorry."

Cry shook his head. "There's nothing you could've done to have prevented it. It was going to happen eventually. She knew it was coming. She was much smarter than me in that regard, I suppose."

Mark moved his head off of Cry's shoulder and looked at him. He had tears in his eyes, but he knew that he was trying to power through it. He was still very distraught over it all, but he was getting better. He was healing.

And that was when Mark realized that he wanted to heal, too.

He was stupid to think that kissing Cry would do anything, however.

Almost as quickly as their lips touched, Cry had backed away. Mark opened his eyes and looked at Cry, who had his eyes closed. "Mark, don't. I know that you're confused, and you're probably very tired, but... this isn't the answer. I don't want to make you think that this is going to magically solve our problems. I wish you knew how much I've been thinking, and I've actually thought about this before, but... you have to understand, just moving on to the next person expecting the past to fade away isn't going to help you." He looked a little strained as he spoke.

"I know, it's just a means to an end," Mark confessed, hanging his head down a little. "It just... I don't know what the hell compelled me to trying to do THAT... I'm sorry, I just thought it would help me out for at least until the morning..."

Cry put a hand to the side of Mark's face, and gently started lifting his head up so that their eyes would meet. "It might feel better now, but I don't want you to get the wrong impression. I don't want to get the wrong impression."

That confused Mark. He had never really thought about how Cry felt about it all--he had never really seemed to care much about it. "I understand," Mark replied, nodding slightly. But he kind of didn't, in the sense of how he still felt the way he had felt trying to kiss him as he did getting rejected.

"But, if it'll make you feel a little better, if you want, you can kiss me again."

Mark was confused. He wasn't sure whether to take Cry up on his offer knowing that it would make him feel better temporarily, but knowing that Cry didn't want it to happen, or if he should ignore it knowing that Cry would be much happier, but he himself wouldn't be satisfied. There was a constant conflict happening in his head for all but two seconds, before he decided it was more or less just his way of coping, and that if Cry was truly offering, he shouldn't feel guilty, since he himself gave Mark the option.

When he leaned in, he began to close his eyes slowly, and he watched Cry sit still, not moving away from him, unlike before. He was comforted by this, but he was still a bit surprised when he actually felt their lips connect. Cry's hand was still on Mark's face, radiating warmth. It was strangely comforting, in a way. It didn't last long--Mark made sure that he didn't seem more desperate than he truly was--and he moved away, almost as slowly as he had leaned in. When he opened his eyes, he was greeted to Cry's eyes, still closed, still not coming to terms with reality. He smirked, and the moonlight striking his face was actually kind of breathtaking. (Mark was usually never this poetic, but he had to admit, if the circumstances were different, he may have fallen for Cry.)

Cry finally opened his eyes, and he looked at Mark, with sympathy in his eyes. "Can you stay here, at least until I fall asleep?" Mark asked, before immediately regretting it. "No, no, never mind, that was stupid, you have to be on guard..."

Cry shook his head. "No, I can make sure you get to sleep. It's fine."

And when Mark rested his head back on Cry's shoulder, it took him almost no time to fall back asleep.


	3. You Got a Reaction, Didn't You?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cry and Mark lead an expedition to get more supplies, and in the process, end up fighting about things they said the night before, and about what happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is inspired by the song "Blue Orchid" by The White Stripes, which I added to the playlist! If you want the link, you can find it in the previous chapter!

Cry woke up, and he realized that he had a massive pain in his neck.

Wait, he had FALLEN ASLEEP?

He felt a bit of panic rising in the back of his throat, but he chose to ignore it, in favor of searching around the Colony for people who were awake. Only a few were still asleep--Ro and Kurt, who had fallen asleep while hugging (Cry had let out a small "aww" after he was sure they were both out like a light), Toby Turner, who was sprawled out in an uncomfortable-looking position in the corner, and Marzia and Felix, who were just as adorable of a couple while asleep as they were while awake.

But where were the people that had been scavenging yesterday?

Cry rubbed the sleep from his eyes before sitting upright and looking for Mark. He jumped a little when he noticed how close he was to Cry, standing up. He was buttoning up his flannel--the red one, the one he considered 'lucky'--since he had taken it off to go to sleep. (He had a t-shirt on underneath, which Cry was very thankful for, otherwise he would've probably had an awkward time trying to explain to Mark why he was simply staring at his torso in awe.)

"Mark? When did I fall asleep?" he asked.

Mark's response was very nonchalant, which was irritating to Cry. How could he be so carefree while talking about the safety of the entire Colony? "You fell asleep a few minutes after I did. I woke up 15 minutes after I fell asleep, and when I saw how peaceful you looked, I decided I'd let you sleep. Plus, you deserved a break. I took over guarding duty."

He was conflicted, because he knew he could trust Mark, but at the same time, he was worried that he had left control over the Colony he had created himself in the hands of someone else. "And the results were...?" Cry asked.

"No Drones within immediate boundaries. I only saw maybe three, and they were all really far away."

Cry was slightly relieved, but he was still worried. Until he knew that Mark's results were truthful, he couldn't be out of the woods just yet. He got up from off the floor and turned to Mark. "Well, that's good. Now, since yesterday we had some scouters for food out, we need to get a group to scout for weapons and medicine. We can always get those from the hospital a little ways down. Are you going to help me out here, or...?"

Mark nodded. "Yeah, yeah... I should go with you guys just in case something happens and we have to fight."

Cry rolled his eyes. "Let me guess, because you're 'soooo strong'?" He had a grin on his face as he said it, and Mark grinned back.

"Not to brag or anything, but I'll have you know that I've kicked some major ASS in my lifetime."

"Yeah, on online multiplayer. Now sit your ass down and let me announce things." Cry couldn't help but let his laughter slip through half of his sassy comeback. Mark laughed as well, and suddenly, Cry felt that same familiarity and friendship he had felt when they had been laughing the day before. And there was still some form of that weird sense that everything was right in the world that he had felt when their lips had met.

The laughter subsided and Cry raised his voice. "EVERYONE!" he yelled, feeling the strain in the back of his throat, "LISTEN UP!" Within about half a minute, everyone else in the room had fallen silent. Cry thanked God that he didn't have to yell again before continuing. "Now, as we all know, since yesterday, we sent scavengers for food, today, we send scavengers for medical supplies and tools. So we need volunteers. Mark and I have decided to lead this one. You don't have to volunteer if you don't want to, but we'll need at least two or three other people so that Mark and I aren't the only ones carrying the supplies. Alright, carry on."

He turned to look at Mark, who had a small smirk still on his face from before. "Impressive leadership skills. I'm surprised that you were ever introverted."

Cry let out a nervous laugh before admitting, "I still am, honestly. I just don't really think that we can afford to be reserved when all of our lives are at stake here. It really drains me to be around so many people all at once and having them depend on me, but if I'm not the one they can depend on, then who else will that person be?"

He knew that if he didn't lead them, nobody else would, and they would run a much higher risk of getting into dangerous situations. Although none of this was actually helping his sanity or making him less anxious, he knew that there would be no Colony if he didn't give some things up.

Mark nodded, seemingly taking in every single word as though he were remembering something he himself had said earlier. "I understand completely. So, how long does it take for volunteers to approach?"

Cry shrugged. "Usually about 10 minutes. Well, at least for enough people to scavenge to show." He was a bit put off by Mark's sudden, nonchalant conversation change. He could tell that there was something bugging him, although he wasn't sure what that would be. Mark was kind of like an enigma--once you began trying to figure him out, the puzzle pieces kept appearing more and more from out of nowhere and they never quite seemed to fit into the places they were supposed to.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Mark cleared his throat before whispering, "So... uh... about last night..."

Cry shook his head, trying to pass it off as never having affected him. "What about it?" Now, Cry knew that he was being dishonest, because he knew that there was a tiny hint at something in there. There were never sporadic bursts of 'I'm going to do this because I want to' when it came to either him or Mark. If he was being honest with himself, he wasn't exactly sure why he had allowed Mark to continue with the kiss in the first place. Maybe there was a part of him that wanted it too, just to see if it would mend him for even just a fraction of time.

"So you agree that it didn't mean anything, right? That we're not magically going to end up ditching our tragic pasts for one another? I mean, I was in grieving, and I was weak, and you were trying to be a good friend... there was nothing more than that... right?"

Mark sounded very unsure, which in turn caused Cry to feel even MORE unsure than he had been before. WAS there anything more? Was Cry simply thinking about this too much and letting it go to his head? He kept thinking about it over and over and over again, like a movie scene being constantly rewound in his head and played like a projector in his eyelids. Something about it seemed... off, sure, but... did it really mean anything other than them just trying to heal? Cry shook his head slightly. This was stupid. He was overthinking. There had been nothing there. Just a moment of weakness and loneliness. Between both of them. And that was it. "Y-Yeah, yeah," he replied, after having thought everything through. "Nothing more."

There was a slight nod from Mark, who seemed relieved at Cry's answer. "Alright then. So no hard feelings? I don't want things to be awkward between us because of this."

"No hard feelings. Scout's honor." Cry paused for a split second before continuing, "I was never in the Boy Scouts. I can't make that kind of commitment."

And then the small but genuine laughter that came from Mark alleviated almost all of the tension that Cry had inflicted upon himself while thinking about everything.

\----------

Cry had gotten about four people to volunteer within the ten minutes that passed after his conversation with Mark, so he was now outside, walking around, guiding Mark, Anthony Padilla, Marzia, Dodger, and Mykie (whom Cry had never met prior to the Colony, but she was very good at helping disguise people when the need arose, due to her special effects makeup background).

"Alright, everyone, make sure we all stay together, so that none of us run off and end up getting killed. This is not a horror movie--if it were, we'd probably all be very very dead right now." Cry looked around at all of them, making sure that they seemed to be understanding what he was telling them. A very awkward moment of silence fell across them, before Cry cleared his throat and snarked, "Good pep talk."

After a solid five minutes, they had found their first Drone patrol. Marzia was the one who first caught sight of him, pointing at him and whispering hurriedly, "There's one of them, we need to hide."

Cry thanked Marzia for having a close eye on the patrols while he wasn't paying any attention and motioned for everyone to follow him as he tried to rush towards the nearest cover.

Mark, Marzia, Anthony, Dodger, and Mykie (in that order) followed suit. Mykie's tone sounded very harsh as she hissed out, "What are we gonna do? The guard looks like he's laser-focused on that one line."

"I say we give some kind of distraction. Like... maybe we should get something from Dodger's pack? She has some stuff we could throw to divert him. Dodger, you okay with sacrificing something from your stash?" Cry asked her. She looked a little frightened at first, but she nodded after a few seconds passed. She took the straps off of her shoulders and set the bag on the ground, as quietly as she could. Cry was so glad that she was willing to cooperate. He was thankful that she had agreed to do it, even though he knew she was very attached to her things. She fished around in her bag for a few seconds before finally pulling out a small mug that Cry recognized from her Coffeh Time videos. He thanked her for giving him the mug, even though she seemed very attached to it, and then looked to Mark. He cleared his throat before saying, "Uh, maybe you should throw it. You've got more upper-arm strength than I do, Mark."

Mark looked at the mug, then to Dodger, who nodded slightly towards him, as if to indicate that it was alright and that she didn't blame Mark. He then looked back to Cry and took the mug, then stretching his arm a little before throwing it to the far west, completely away from the guard. It shattered as it hit the stone of the nearby highway, and the guard almost immediately took the bait. Mark smirked as the guard took off in the direction of the sound of the mug, while Cry motioned for the group to follow him as he walked forward to get out of the guard's line of sight.

Dodger had small tears in her eyes, but she consistently stated that she was alright, even though her appearance gave her away. She was very clearly still sentimental about that mug.

Once all six of them had gotten past the guard's line of sight (in all directions), Cry let out a small sigh of relief, as to not completely alert the guard with the voice. "Thank God we managed to get past him." He wiped a bead of sweat that was beginning to trickle down his forehead as he heard Dodger's breath begin shaking even worse than it had before, back when the mug had just been thrown.

"G-Guys..." she began, her voice quivering with sadness. Cry looked at her, and saw that she had tears in her eyes. He reached out towards her and gave her a hug, as she cried into his shoulder. "I'm gonna miss that mug." Her words were muffled into his shoulder, but he could understand her very clearly. He hated how truly upset she was about the loss of that mug. He hated that she had to feel that upset. He hated that this world was turning into such a hellhole. There was nothing he could do to change it right now, however.

"Dodger, I know that you were attached to it, but if we didn't do that, we wouldn't have been able to get past. You have to understand. We didn't make you do that because we wanted to. This world fucking sucks, and I would give anything to get you that mug back, or to get Cheyenne's life back, or to get back the way things used to be before everything went to hell, but we can't, and you're going to have to accept that. There is nothing we can do. I'm sorry."

She nodded and let go of Cry, still heaving sobs. She knew that there was no sense in being upset, when sooner or later, it would have ended up that way in all probability.

Cry felt bad for her, but he knew that there was no getting around these things.

"Come on, Dodger, we've gotta keep going." He led her with him, a hand on her shoulder. Looking around at the rest of the people he had brought with him scavenging, he locked eyes with Mark, who was smiling at him. The moment was so brief that Cry couldn't tell whether he was genuinely smiling at him, or he was smiling out of sympathy for Dodger (or for Cry himself).

They continued down the path Cry knew, with him and Dodger in the lead, followed very closely by Mark. "It shouldn't be far now," he said, turning his head as far back he could in order to get the message to the others.

It was quiet, save for the footsteps of the group. It was at times like this where he could think. He was scared to think for too long, because when he was exposed to his own thoughts for too long, he would begin to get pretty morbid. He knew that he shouldn't be thinking about such morbid things, but in a crapsack world like this, his mind was definitely bound to wonder to those places. Seeing so much of it played a factor in that as well, he supposed.

But Mark seemed like a small solace from this. He was a way to get himself out of his own mind. An escape from the horrible parts of the world. And, even though he knew it was wrong and horrible and absolutely not worth it in the long run, he had to admit, getting Mark to kiss him was kind of awesome. His heart had managed to flutter a little when that happened. He hadn't been expecting it AT ALL, which served to make it either much better, or much worse, as he looked at it either way. But... honestly he was not only afraid of what implications his feelings about this imposed, but he was also intrigued. Mark was a great person, but... was he truly capable of being in love with anyone else after what happened with Cheyenne?

That question alone was enough to make him completely reconsider everything. He couldn't believe that he was even CONSIDERING this, but... shit happens, he supposed, even when all of the shit that he ever thought could possibly happen had already happened at least three times.

Somehow, this line of thinking made things in his head even worse than if he had just thought about the usual "1,000 Ways to Die". He cursed Mark and everything he stood for.

"We're here," Mark said, smirking.

Cry snapped out of his existential dread for a little while, looking over at Mark.

"Alright everyone, start searching for as much as possible, but don't carry too much, otherwise it'll be harder for us to get back effectively. Only take as much as you can carry comfortably. You know the drill."

Everyone nodded before setting off into various sections of the abandoned store, with Mykie and Dodger heading for the food, Anthony keeping post near the door, Marzia digging around for things near the cash register, and Mark and Cry venturing off into the back sections of the store to see if there were any other things kept in the storage.

"So, uh, yeah... about last night..." Cry said, realizing that he was bringing up the subject again. He didn't really care. He figured that there HAD to be something going on for Mark to just outright kiss him. He hated having to over-analyze everything, but he was sure that Mark didn't do ANYTHING for the hell of it.

Mark grabbed a can of sliced peaches. "I thought we already talked about this earlier. There was nothing to it. Nothing at all. Just a lot of fucked up tension. No other motives. Scout's honor but not really because you were never in the Boy Scouts and thus you can't make that kind of commitment."

Cry nodded. "Yeah, yeah, it's just... I don't know why, but I've been thinking about it a lot on the way over here. I... I don't know."

"Why are you so worried about it? Of all people, I figured that YOU would be the one that understood-"

"Oh, so you were planning on going around making out with OTHER people after telling them your tragic stories of falling in love with someone only for them to be ripped out of your hands?"

"No, but if I were to go back, I would've definitely made sure that it wasn't YOU."

"Fuck you, Mark! You have no goddamn idea what I've been through! Cheyenne is fucking DEAD! You at least have the hope that maybe Jack is alive! I don't get that kind of privilege! I have to come to terms with the fact that the only person I've ever loved in my entire life is DEAD! I'm never going to get her back! I can't magically save her and change her from being a Drone! There IS no hope for me!"

Mark's voice was full of tranquil fury. "I don't really have any high hopes either, asshole. I haven't seen Jack for so long. Maybe even longer than you've been without Cheyenne. And knowing that he could be one of them is one of the worst things I've ever had to face. I could be looking at a Drone officer with a helmet on, wishing that I wanted them dead, and it could be him."

"You know goddamn well that our situations aren't the same, Mark-"

"THEN MOVE THE FUCK ON. Get over it. Yeah, I kissed you twice. I don't have any other feelings behind it. Maybe you do. But if you really think for one second that I'm not going through the same Hell you're going through every single second of my life, you're dead fucking wrong."

Cry was silent for a while, stunned at how frightening Mark could be when he was angry. There was nothing more scary than someone who sounded completely calm when they were full of rage. Mark could be very dangerous. It was probably not a good idea to provoke him. Whatever. Mark was being an inconsiderate asshole, and Cry had to call him out on it. If things kept going the way that they were going, Cry may have had to consider kicking him out of the colony.

"Listen here, asshat. All of us are going through some tough shit. If you think for one second that you're the person that has it the worst, someone's going to come along and prove you wrong. Everything is horrible right now, and there's NOTHING that can make it any better. So shut your fucking mouth right now. And there HAD to have been some force that compelled you to do that. From personal experience, I've never made out with anyone after telling them my tragic backstory. So, call it what you will. A cry for help, a mystical snog-fest, just a couple of bros being bros. Whatever made you do that, was NOT the same force that compels me."

"I'm getting REALLY tired of this bullshit, you know? I didn't even want to be part of this stupid fucking Colony bullshit anyway."

"THEN FUCKING LEAVE! GO ON, GET YOURSELF KILLED, FOR ALL I CARE!"

"I WILL!" Mark yelled, throwing the can onto the ground. The contents exploded out of it, and Cry felt some of the syrup from the can fly onto his face. He didn't care.

As Mark began to walk out of the storage, Cry yelled something that he probably shouldn't have.

"WHO KNOWS? MAYBE IT'LL BE JACK THAT FUCKING KILLS YOU!"


	4. There's No Use Crying About It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark is dead set on leaving, but something convinces him to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The name of this chapter was inspired by the song "Castle" by Halsey. I've recently updated the playlist a lot more as well, so if you want to check it out, the link is in Chapter 2!

Something kept telling Mark that he was making a horrible mistake, but he knew that he needed to just get away from Cry for a while.

"WHO KNOWS? MAYBE IT'LL BE JACK THAT FUCKING KILLS YOU!"

Mark stopped dead in his tracks. Was Cry ASKING to be torn to pieces? He couldn't bring himself to turn around. There was nothing but silent rage stirring around in his head. He couldn't believe that Cry had said that to him. "Fuck you," he said, in a low tone. His voice sounded like he was growling at him.

There was a moment of nothing but eerie silence between them as Mark began to finally turn around to face Cry once again.

"I... I don't know what came over me, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it-"

"Fuck. You," Mark repeated, this time punctuating his words for emphasis. "You never say anything without meaning it. That's for goddamn sure. I've been around you long enough to know that. Maybe you didn't realize it. But you don't fucking understand. This is hard on me. This is hard on all of us. But you're not getting it. Jack was one of the only people that I had left. At least you know that Cheyenne isn't in pain anymore. I have no way of possibly knowing if Jack is safe or not. You don't have to worry about seeing Cheyenne one day, becoming the embodiment of everything you hate. You don't have to worry about being shot down by the only person that you thought you could trust. You don't have to worry about hurting the one person that you've ever truly loved just because they've become something that isn't them. You don't have to worry about looking them in the eye as you end their life."

Cry stood there, with eyes agape. Mark wondered if maybe he was beginning to feel like he had met him for the first time again. He began to open his mouth to speak, but couldn't. He just stood there, processing what Mark had told him.

"Look. If there's anything I know about you, Cry, it's that you mean the best. But sometimes, your actions are misguided. I know that you didn't want to make me feel worse, but you said it, and there's no taking it back. You just want what's best for the survivors, but... that was fucking harsh."

Cry nodded. "Y-Yeah I know it was, and I'm... so sorry. I was pissed off, and... it just sort of came out. I... I'm sorry. I want you to know that you have every right to be pissed off at me for what I said. You can leave, I'll be fine. Please, just... don't do anything rash, alright? I... I care about you. You're one of my best friends now, and I really don't want you to get hurt out there. So, please, just... whatever you do... take care, alright?"

Mark gulped and nodded in response. "I don't know, Cry. I'll need some time to think it over. Can... can we just stay in here while I think about it?"

"Sure. If you want, you can help me find some more stuff."

Mark nodded again, and Cry began to walk deeper into the freezer as Mark stood in thought. He wondered if things between them could ever be the same as they had been before things happened, or if they were simply doomed to remain awkward and bitter. Either way, Mark wasn't really completely thrilled at either prospect.

There were strange things going on inside Mark's head. Strange, fucked up, unwanted things. He had begun to wonder if maybe he had things all wrong, and that perhaps Cry was the one that he was supposed to be mulling after instead of Jack. He had thought it ever since the day of the Colony's birthday. He hated to think about it even. Just looking at Cry made him feel like he was cheating on Jack. He wanted to get rid of these thoughts, and he would've given almost anything to leave them be and stop them from even existing. But they refused to leave, like adamant houseguests. Mark was so fucked up, he couldn't even believe that he was still thinking this, even after Cry had just basically told him to fuck off and die.

"Hey, uh... Cry? Can we... talk about things?" Mark asked, as he began to follow the direction that Cry had went.

"Mark, don't. I understand how you feel. It's fine. Honestly, I wouldn't have let you if I wasn't okay with it. And we've already agreed that it was platonic, right? Nothing meant behind it. Seriously. Isn't that what we just got done fighting about? Seriously, you were the one that got pissed off at me for even mentioning it in the first place, so just stop. You've made things very clear."

Mark hated how sad Cry sounded when he said it.

So, he walked faster to catch up with Cry, and he grabbed his hand.

"What the...?" He heard Cry mutter under his breath, as soon as their fingers intertwined.

Mark didn't care. He just needed Cry to know that he was there, and that he was still wondering if things between them could ever be proper again. "In case you're wondering, I'm still trying to decide for myself whether or not there's anything behind it. I was just getting defensive because I was scared... God, everything is just so fucked up... I can't say that I know exactly what the hell I'm ever doing at any given moment in time, but I can tell you safely that I don't just do things randomly. Everything has a purpose to me, and I guess kissing you was no exception. Oh my God, this is so messed up... I wish that things between us could've happened under different circumstances..."

Cry nodded, rubbing his thumb across the back of Mark's hand, as if he was trying to comfort him. "I know that you don't do things for the hell of it. You and I are similar that way. Things are fucked up, I know, and hell, most of the time, I don't even know what I'M doing. Don't worry about it. I understand. Everything is so much harder now that things are the way that they are."

"Cry?"

"What is it?"

Mark let out a breath, closing his eyes and mustering up whatever courage he had left. "Can I kiss you? Again? I know how weird it must sound for me to ask you, but, I just... I don't know..."

Cry shook his head. "Yeah. You can."

He hadn't been expecting that answer.

As he turned to face Cry, he scoffed. "I feel so damn weak right now. I can't believe that I'm doing this..."

Cry took both sides of Mark's face in his hands and gave a small smirk. "Don't worry about it. You're anything but weak. 'Weak' shouldn't even be part of your vocabulary, you know. You're one of the strongest people I know. Everything you've ever done has been so brave. You have no idea how amazing you are, do you?"

Mark felt tears start welling up in his eyes. It was everything that he had ever needed to hear, being told to him right then and there. He couldn't believe that he was hearing this from the leader of the only Resistance force that the Drones had ever heard, and the leader of a Colony of tough, brave people in and of themselves. He was hearing this from Cryaotic, the person that had organized everything that he had right now. He was hearing this from an introverted person sacrificing his personal comfort for the sake of others. Compared to all of those accomplishments, Mark felt like he had done absolutely nothing.

But either way, Mark was so grateful that he had to close the gap.

He had a small grin on his face as his lips connected to Cry's. He tried to numb everything else out of his mind. All that mattered right now was his happiness, and that he felt safe, for one of the first times in a long time. He felt appreciated, and cared for, and... loved.

When he pulled away, Cry smirked back at him, and the two exchanged a small bit of laughter before Cry said, "Now, how about we get back to our actual job instead of being sad, mopey post-apocalyptic star-crossed pseudo-lovers?"

Mark laughed and nodded. "You're right. And... thank you."

"For what?"

"For... everything. For taking me in even though I didn't want to, for accepting me despite all my flaws, for treating me so nicely, for giving me hope... for making me feel appreciated... For letting me vent my frustrations. I'm still kinda salty about you yelling at me earlier, but I think you've given me a reason to stay with you for just a little longer."

Cry smiled. "I'm glad that I'm so convincing. Damn, I must be a good kisser."

"Come on, don't give yourself THAT much credit. It wasn't the kiss that sold me. You're a damn good speaker, but you're iffy on the other part."

"Dammit! Does this mean I can never win?"

"Oh hush, you. Now start actually working instead of getting hung up on something like that. Last time that happened, we had a nuclear fallout."

"Don't remind me."

The two separated and began to search around the freezer, grabbing anything and everything they could that wasn't completely rotten.

They were too far in to hear Anthony trying to warn them of the Drone rapidly approaching.


	5. Tell Me How It Should Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's an unexpected visit while Cry and the others are rummaging through the store. Can Cry and the gang manage to hide themselves in time to prevent confrontation?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The name of this chapter was inspired by the song "Lune" by Y&V.
> 
> Speaking of music, I've added A WHOLE SLEW OF OTHER SONGS TO THE PLAYLIST! Here's the link:
> 
> https://play.spotify.com/user/1261400532/playlist/1TG1zohUcgG4lo8fK2vW51
> 
> (Also, sorry for the last chapter being short. I wanted to get it done, but I got some major writer's block, and eventually I decided that the ending I already had was good. This chapter is hopefully much longer to help make up for it.)

Cry wondered how they would ever be able to make anything work between them. They were both way too broken to make anything like this work anymore. They had both already been in this situation before, with different people, and they were already heartbroken when they tried it before. Cry knew in his heart of all hearts that eventually, this would end in tragedy again. The only question was whether Mark would be losing him or if he would be losing Mark.

Either way, it was destined to end eventually.

And when he heard Marzia run into the freezer yelling about a Drone within the vicinity, he figured it would be much sooner than later.

He put on a straight face and tried desperately to tap into his stern leader self, but he couldn't pretend that he wasn't completely scared. He wanted nothing more than the Drone to just turn around and not even bother to check the store. He wished that they wouldn't have to fight them. He wished that things could change. He wished that the Drone was actually a decent guy, or maybe just a regular Drone with poor eyesight. He knew that they wouldn't be.

His heart was pounding in his ears, and he could actually taste the metallic flavor of blood in his mouth.

He and Mark had ran out to where the others were located. "Everyone, be calm. Hide anywhere you can. We could all take shelter in the freezer. Come on," he said, through gritted teeth, motioning with his arm for the others to hurry over.

They listened. After all, Cry was their fearless leader, right? Who wouldn't listen to the voice of reason in this situation?

Apparently Mark.

Mark was frozen solid in place. Cry tapped him on the shoulder and said, in a much more urgent tone, "Come. On. We gotta go, right now."

Mark shook his head. "I can't."

Cry groaned and grabbed Mark by the shoulders, pushing him away with all of his strength. He was pleasantly surprised that he could actually muster to make Mark move any. Mark wasn't necessarily a light dude. (Not that he was fat or anything--far from it. Cry tried not to think too much about Mark being all muscle-y, since it was awfully strange to think about now that things between them were... well, the way they were. Cry didn't even know what to call it. Was it a crush? Was it something else? Either way, Cry didn't know, and right now, in the face of certain death, Cry didn't care to look too much into it.)

He managed to get him to the freezer relatively quickly, and Cry tried to get in with the others as soon as he possibly could. He prayed to every single deity that he could think of that the Drone hadn't managed to spot him.

Anthony was breathing hard, and Marzia had her eyes shut tight, with her fingers crossed. Mykie was sitting on the floor, her elbows rested on her knees, with her head in her hands. Dodger was pacing back and forth, unable to keep still. Mark was still frozen in place, unable to do anything but blink.

Cry turned to face Mark after he had shut the door to the freezer. "What the fuck?!" he yelled.

"I... I think I know who that Drone was," Mark said, in a low voice.

"Was it Jack?" Cry asked immediately.

Mark shook his head, indicating that it wasn't. "No, no... it couldn't have been him. It... it was Bob." Tears began to run down Mark's face and he began shaking.

Cry put a hand on Mark's shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Mark. I know how hard this must be for you, especially considering everything else that's been going on. I know how close you were with Bob..."

"No, you don't," Mark managed to utter in response. "You have no fucking clue. This is the hardest thing I've ever had to come to terms with. Not only is Jack one of them, but Bob is too? Why can't the world just give me a fucking break?!" he yelled, grabbing a box from a nearby shelf.

Everyone in the freezer stifled a gasp, especially Dodger, who was already a bit unhinged.

Mark threw the box towards the opposite end of the freezer, where nobody was located, so that nobody got hurt.

Unfortunately, the box had breakable contents, and the metal and glass from the containers everything was located inside began to spew everywhere. One managed to barely miss Cry's face, while Cry saw another launch itself at Mykie, landing in her shoulder. She yelped in pain, but didn't scream, much like Cry thought she would've. She was strong, and her stoicism was actually quite admirable, despite the circumstances. Mykie looked up to where the others were standing with tears in her eyes, but she refused to cry.

Dodger let out a small scream as soon as she saw the piece of glass that had lodged itself into Mykie's shoulder. She began to pace back and forth even faster than before, and Cry wondered if maybe she was on the verge of breaking down.

Marzia and Anthony looked to one another with wide eyes first, then both stooped down to help her out, with Anthony trying to get rid of the shard, and Marzia trying to calm her down.

Meanwhile, Cry looked to Mark. He couldn't hold it in anymore.

He hadn't realized how strong he was up until he heard the sound his hand made when it slapped against Mark's jaw. Mark had stumbled backwards, but hadn't fallen over. He looked to Cry with a hand on his jaw, where Cry had slapped him, but didn't speak. Cry was full of rage. "WHAT THE FUCK, MARK?!" he yelled, angrily. "YOU COULD'VE FUCKING KILLED US ALL!"

"Am I not allowed to be pissed off?!" asked Mark in retaliation.

"NOT WHEN OUR FUCKING LIVES ARE AT STAKE! I JUST BARELY DODGED A PIECE OF GLASS THAT WAS HEADED FOR MY FUCKING EYE, AND YOU MANAGED TO HIT MYKIE!"

"I'm sorry! I didn't think that it would do anything!"

"WELL, IT FUCKING DID! YOU'RE HYSTERICAL! YOU NEED TO SNAP OUT OF IT BEFORE YOU HURT ANYONE ELSE!"

Mark was silent, his hand still covering his newly forming bruise. His eyes looked sad, but his lips were still curled into a snarl directed right at Cry. He didn't seem to understand the implications of what was happening. Either way, Mark was silent as he kept looking at Cry, who was still angry.

"Look, I understand that you're pissed off, okay?! I get it! You don't have to go around throwing shit to tell me that! I could've deduced that on my own!" Cry began to calm down, his anger instead turning to tranquil fury. He took in a deep breath, closing his eyes, before continuing. "But whatever you do, from now on, if you so much as even THINK about taking it out on any of the rest of us, I'm going to throw you out of the Colony without a second thought. If you're not with us, you're against us, Mark. I wanted to give you a second chance, and I thought that maybe you could be useful to us, but knowing what we know now that you've done this, I'm not sure that I can completely trust you anymore. So, I suggest getting a better hold of yourself before you so much as lift another finger. Either you stop being a fucking psycho, or you let us leave before you and never come back. The choice is yours, Mark. I'm sure you'll know what to do with it."

Cry then turned his back to Mark, to try and comfort Dodger, who at this point was reduced to tears, and was currently pressed with her back against the wall, rocking back and forth out of sheer terror.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," Dodger was mumbling, repetitively to herself. She had her eyes shut tightly, and she could barely breathe. Cry knelt down next to her and set a hand on her shoulder. "Oh my God, this can't be happening," she then said, as soon as she felt Cry's presence.

"Dodger, please stop crying. Calm down. I've got everything taken care of. Please don't worry anymore. Mykie's going to be okay."

"I thought for sure that once Mark got as angry as he did, we were all going to be goners. That's the way that the Drones always act once they spot you."

Cry was confused. That wasn't how he remembered the Drones at all. From what he had seen of them, they were simply formal, military-esque officials. Maybe Dodger's encounter had been different than his?

"What do you mean?" he asked her.

She looked up to him, her eyes more red than Cry had ever seen anyone's. She was visibly traumatized from what she had seen. "You know, don't you? The mutant Drones? You've seen some of them, haven't you? Am I the only one who has?"

Cry stood up, trying to process all of the information he had just received. "Mutants?" he asked, mostly to himself, although he knew that it was still loud enough for Dodger to have heard him.

She nodded. "Yeah, th-the Mutants? The ones they've been making recently? The people that they take in have special chips implanted in their brains and every time they start to get angry, there's this weird... neurotoxin thing that they made that gets shot directly into their heads... it's... it's scary. I heard it from Jesse before he got taken for good. He had told me all about it."

"Oh my God," Cry said, covering his mouth. He felt like he was going to be sick. This was horrible news for him to hear.

Dodger looked back down at the floor and began to cry again. "And I swore that whenever I saw him get that angry, he was going to turn on us all. I thought for sure that he was one of them... I thought I saw his eyes change color."

Mark was suddenly vocal. "BULLSHIT!" he yelled. Dodger jumped a little and began to cry even more. "THAT'S COMPLETE BULLSHIT!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Cry yelled back at him.

"NO! SHE'S FUCKING ACCUSING ME OF BEING A DRONE!"

Cry began to walk back over to Mark, and he was about ready to slap him again. "I said, SHUT. THE FUCK. UP."

"And why the hell should I?" Mark asked, his voice low and gravelly.

"Because if you don't, I'll see to it personally that you never make it till next morning."

Mark stopped dead in his tracks, with wide eyes. He looked at Cry like he was looking at someone he had never met, or like someone whom he had just witnessed murder another person. It was like Mark suddenly saw him with brand new eyes, and he was now an enemy. Cry hated the lump in his throat he got when he noticed it. He hated having just been hopeful for anything between them. He hated having once been happy when he looked into his eyes. Whoever this was in front of him was NOT Mark. It couldn't possibly be. After what he had just seen, Mark wasn't there. It was someone masquerading as him.

"Please, Mark. Don't make this any harder for me than it already is," Cry said, his voice much lower than before. He wondered if it was because he was holding back tears as best he could, or if it was because he didn't want to face the situation confidently.

Mark winced and began to look around the freezer, not making eye contact with anyone. "This isn't the way that things should be..."

"Then tell me, Mark. Tell me how it should be."

"You and I should still be friends, and Mykie shouldn't be having to have someone take glass out of her shoulder, and Dodger shouldn't be reduced to whatever she is now, and Jack shouldn't be dead, and Bob shouldn't be a Drone, and Mutants shouldn't exist, and... and you should..." He stopped there, refusing to continue with his sentence. His eyes met Cry's again, only this time, Cry could see the tears welling up in them.

He thought he had a pretty good estimation as to what Mark was going to finish that sentence with.

"You should've thought about that before you threw that box, huh?" Cry answered. He couldn't bring himself to look right at Mark as he said it.

When he finally brought his head back up, Mark nodded. "You're right. Which is why I'm leaving the Colony."

Cry shut his eyes tight as soon as Mark said it. It felt like a verbal slap to the face. Maybe Mark was simply doing this to spite him. Maybe Mark was legitimately trying to get better. Maybe Mark just had a death wish. Any way that Cry looked at it, he knew that Mark was just as broken as he was. They were all broken, in their own way. Every single person in that room had an affliction that they had to deal with. For Mark, it was losing all of his friends, for Cry it was losing all of his loved ones (except Jund, and for that, he was grateful), for Mykie it was her warped view on Mark now that she had a piece of glass stuck in her shoulder, for Dodger it was seeing the Mutants and losing her best friend Jesse (as well as Sam, for that matter, who had been her husband up until that point)...

So many people had lost so much, and the Colony was just a reflection of that. At the very least, Cry had thought he had found another way to deal with his brokenness, and that was Mark. Mark had been like the perfect broken puzzle piece that fit right next to him, or so it had seemed. The Colony itself had felt like a puzzle full of broken pieces, that had somehow managed to come together to create a beautiful picture.

But now, Cry realized that this couldn't be farther from the truth.

Every single piece had a different color on it, and when they were put together, some of the pieces would fit, but the bigger picture was far from beautiful. The bigger picture was far from it. In fact, Cry had come to the realization that the picture that they put together was none other than a picture of Death itself. And he hated it. He wanted to just scream. Mark couldn't leave. They needed all the help they could get, and Mark was a great help, considering. He would be great for fending off any of the Drones that wanted to dare come near their Colony.

But, since Cry didn't want to make him feel like he was trying to force him to stay, he nodded, feeling the lump in his throat return. "That's fine, as long as you're sure. I won't do anything to stop you, if this is what you want. Just be sure to stay safe out there, alright?"

"Have you ever known me to go down that easily?"

There was no smile on Mark's face.

Cry let out an instinctive chuckle. "No, no, you're right. I trust that you'll be able to make it out of this. Just, please... if you ever feel like you're ready to come back, or if you're still down on your luck, don't hesitate to come back."

"Trust me, I won't."

Cry turned around to face the others. "Um, can you excuse me and Mark for a second? We're going to check and see if the coast is clear."

Everyone nodded, and Cry noticed that Marzia was now comforting Dodger, and Anthony had managed to remove the glass from Mykie's shoulder. Mykie had her head hung down, and she refused to look anyone in the eye.

Cry then held open the door for Mark as he walked out of it, and Cry shut the door behind them. 

As soon as he knew the coast was clear, he planted his lips straight onto Mark's. It was all he could think to do in the moment. But Mark wasn't opposed to it, as he allowed Cry to continue kissing him. He gave a smirk and simply dove deeper into the kiss instead, as if he was glad.

But unfortunately for Cry, he didn't want to stop kissing him.

As anyone with a right mind knows, when you don't stop kissing someone, this can lead to some... interesting situations. And as anyone with a right mind knows, this interesting situation should definitely not be happening when your close friends and followers are behind a thin door and can hear everything you do or say. And, as anyone with a right mind knows, you shouldn't really even be kissing someone whenever your close friends and followers are behind a thin door and can hear everything you do or say.

Especially whenever the person you're stuck in the interesting situation with has just physically injured one of them.

So Cry managed to get back to his wits and stop things from happening. He was glad that he had, otherwise he would never have been able to bring himself to let Mark go. He wanted nothing more than to have been able to keep things going, but unfortunately, this couldn't be the case.

As they both lied on the floor, with their arms wrapped around one another, with Mark's shirt off (I told you these things can lead to some very interesting situations, didn't I?), Cry looked up at him, with eyes full of wonder and anger and sadness and hope and happiness and contentment and failure and rage and upset... and something he knew was some form of love.

"Are you sure that you have to leave?" asked Cry, sitting up, removing his arms from Mark's waist. Mark then sat up next to him and nodded. "Why did you have to do this to me?"

"I didn't do anything to you--"

"Yes, you did. You made me feel hopeful for something for the first time since I lost everything. You made me feel optimistic for a future. You made me feel determined to win. You made me feel confident in my decisions. You made me feel accepted." He lowered his voice to a whisper to add, "You made me feel cared for."

Mark put an arm around Cry's shoulders, and he rested his head next to his. "I completely understand. You made me feel the same way. But I just can't stay here anymore. Things are too tense. Plus, I'm not sure if whatever's happening right now is meant to be real or not. Either way, it doesn't change anything. I can't go back and change what I've done or said. I'm not going to hold a grudge. You and the rest of the Colony will be able to make it with or without me. I trust that you can lead them all to safety. I've seen what you can do, Cry. You're so smart, and kind. I know that if anybody can save the world, it's you. Not me. You. You're the bravest person I've ever met. You can do this. I know you can."

Cry shook his head. He didn't know what to think anymore. What was happening to him? Was he growing soft?

Either way, this wasn't how it should be.

"When you leave, I need you to forget about me, please. I'm going to try my damnedest to forget about you, too. If you ever come back, I might go insane. Just don't make things any harder on me than they have to be. If you're serious, I need you to stay the hell away from me. If you're going to stay, we can continue things and see where they lead. But if you're that adamant on leaving, I'm not going to stop you. But once you start walking in the opposite direction, we can't ever see each other again. Promise me that you can do that for me, please?"

Mark nodded. "Yeah. I don't want to make things harder for myself, either. I promise that as soon as we part ways, I won't ever return unless it's absolutely necessary." He stuck out a pinkie.

Cry laughed. "What is this? Are we in second grade?"

Mark shrugged. "It's best to be safe. If you don't link pinkies with me, I'm going to remember you as a dirty traitor and a crook."

Cry rolled his eyes, extending his own pinkie and linking it with Mark's. "Fine, there." He then lowered his voice even more than before to say, "Now put your fucking shirt back on before I make another mistake."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT HAVE I DONE TO MYSELF.


	6. A Scar Away From Falling Apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark and Cry part ways, but breaking up is hard to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title was inspired by "The (After) Life of the Party" by Fall Out Boy. This is also the last of Mark's third-person chapters for a while, since he's kind of leaving. But never fear, his POV will return!
> 
> Also, I'm very sorry that this chapter is short! I've had MAJOR writer's block on this for a very LONG time, but I really hope that you enjoy it nonetheless!

So this was the way things ended. Not with a bang (no pun intended on Mark's part, considering the situation they had nearly been in), but with a whimper.

Mark wished he hadn't jumped to a thought that easily. He wanted nothing more than to stay there, with Cry, for the rest of time. It felt like home, strangely, there, lying on the cold tile floor with him in his arms. Sure, he wasn't wearing a shirt, and sure, all of their friends were stuck inside of a freezer, and sure, he had just accidentally lodged a piece of glass into one of their shoulders, and sure, Cry was basically telling him to leave and never come back, but at the same time, he knew that things between them were just getting to the point where everything was certain and everything was also completely unpredictable. Everything was broken and everything was in perfect condition. Everything hurt and everything took away his pain.

The way he felt was a beautiful paradox--the most amazing contradiction.

But everything had to end, at some point or another. And this was no exception to that rule of life.

He didn't even know why he liked Cry anymore. He was still confused as to how they had gotten to the point that they had just gotten to. Mark could barely remember the time before they kissed the first time. And that was just yesterday. If things could be like this after just one day, then Mark could only imagine how amazing things would've been had they had a week, or a month, or a year, or the rest of their lives.

He didn't even want to think about it. He was already too invested in something that had been doomed from the beginning.

But that was just his luck--everything that he had ever been hopeful for eventually soured. This one was just much faster to turn than the others. He had been expecting this, though. Mark knew that he was a really bad person for doing what he had done. He was a shitty human and he didn't deserve to be happy.

And yet, at the same time, he knew that he DID.

He DID deserve to be happy. He deserved this. He deserved to be able to live the way that he wanted. He deserved moments of joy, didn't he? He deserved to live his life and be content with what he did.

And he was content with spending the rest of his days with Cry, if he was being completely honest with himself.

Mark hated it. He hated being simply CONTENT, but this was really all he COULD be anymore. He couldn't truly be happy anymore, knowing that Jack is M.I.A. and Bob is a Drone now. He didn't know how to feel about anything anymore. He didn't know how much of his feeling was truly genuine, and how much was simply part of him trying to get the voices in his head to stop.

Either way, he still appreciated the way that Cry made him feel.

God, this was going to hurt like hell, wasn't it?

He had finally managed to put on his shirt, like a normal human being, and he was now standing in front of Cry, looking at him, knowing that this would be the last time that he would get to see him like this. He didn't want to grasp that reality yet, but still...

Fuck, this relationship was messed up.

Even if Mark weren't leaving, it never would have worked out for them, and both of them knew this perfectly well. But still, goddamn, did it hurt like hell.

Whatever. Just acknowledging how much it hurt made it somehow hurt worse.

So, Mark made sure to grab whatever he could that the others hadn't grabbed, and he stuffed it into his knapsack. For some odd reason, it felt less and less like saying goodbye and more like saying thanks.

Bob had long since left the premises, which made everything much easier. It was hard enough even seeing him the first time. Mark wasn't sure how he would've survived seeing him like that again.

If he ever saw another Drone, he wasn't sure what he would do.

His stomach churned as he began to take baby steps towards the exit, where Cry was standing, waiting there for him, there to give him goodbyes and make sure that he didn't get into any trouble. Bob was already one of them. Who was to say that they hadn't turned Wade or Jack, either? He felt himself freeze momentarily, a shiver running down his spine, as he thought about what Wade or Jack might look like, with Drone DNA inside of them. And, going by the implications that Dodger had just given, it was likely that at least one of them was transformed into a Mutant.

Don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it don't-

"Well, I think that does it, right? I mean, there's not really a lot to say, other than... I guess, I'll see you around?"

Mark smirked. He couldn't believe that a simple "see you around" was all he was going to get from Cry, the only person he had found any kind of solace in for the past however-many months. The first person he had truly felt any sort of connection with since Jack and Bob and Wade had been taken by the Drones. The person he had literally just been almost banging three seconds ago. (Mark wished he could have thought that in much less heavy terms, but... well, that WAS basically what happened.) And now here he was, sending him off into the vast unknown, with nothing more than just a simple "see you around"? Hell, that was worse than the dumb "Have a great summer!" signatures every jackass from high school put in your yearbook.

Cry seemed to sense Mark's unease about the implications of "see you around". "Uh, w-what I meant was-"

"I know what you meant, Cry," Mark said, cutting him off. He wanted to reassure him that everything between them was going to be fine. "Trust me, I know what you meant."

"What I meant was that I really care about you, alright? I might not love you, like I loved Chey. I might not even LIKE you that way, because everything just sort of happened and there wasn't really any chance in Hell of me stopping it. But goddammit, I really fucking care about you. You're one of the very few people these days that I can say is a true friend. I've never been more conflicted about something in my entire life, but the undisputed truth is that I care about you. I really regret the phrasing I used in saying 'before I make another mistake', because nothing of what happened between us was ever something I would call a mistake. It meant something, and even if it wasn't technically real, it still meant SOMETHING.

"Mark, I'm really fucking scared right now. I can't really explain it, but... I don't want you to get hurt. Physically OR emotionally. And I already know what you're going to say. 'This already hurts, so you're not really doing me any favors right now.' I know that. Just... I don't want you to ever find Jack. Honestly, I don't. And that sounds really selfish of me, but you know what I mean by that.

"Please, just... if you EVER need anything, don't even hesitate for a second in coming back. I'll accept you with open arms. You've done a lot for me, and that means a lot. No matter what, you can still consider me your friend. Just...

"Goddammit. I don't even really know if I mean this, or if it's just me trying to find SOMETHING to hold onto, but...

"I love you, Mark."

The words came out of his mouth slowly and without a lot of confidence. Mark knew that he didn't TRULY mean them. At least, not in the sense of truly LOVING him, as someone he could conceivably spend the rest of his lifetime with.

It was more of a "you're my best friend and if something happened to you, I don't know what I'd do, but I'd somehow manage to get through it, because I know that you would want me to keep going, no matter what" I-love-you. It was more of a "you mean the world to me, but I'm not sure if I could stand for you to kiss me again, because I don't really like it, nor do I really DISLIKE it" I-love-you.

The bottom line was, it was more platonic than anything.

And that was what Mark had been expecting.

Mark knew that I-love-yous didn't come easily, ESPECIALLY not from someone like Cry. They were few and far-between, but when they did manage to slip, they were precious, and something to be held onto. They were genuine, and unbreakable. They were forever, and lingered in the air for the rest of time. They were like promises, or secrets, of sorts. They were quiet, but strong.

Falling in actual, real, genuine, "I want to kiss you over and over and over again for the rest of my life" love took WAY more time. This might have been the beginning of it, but it wasn't the real thing. It felt more like a dress rehearsal, if anything. Like, a mutual crush type of scenario.

Except, as many flings of this sort ended, it began to fade, like the dying embers of a wildfire.

And there was nothing either one of them could have done to stop it.

Mark nodded, unsure if was able to give the sentiment back.

His voice shook as he repeated the words, as though he were reading a line from a cue card that had been set up for him behind Cry. He knew that Cry could tell that he didn't really mean it either, but he also felt like that would help them connect more.

Cry outstretched a hand, with a sympathetic grin on his face, and tears welling in his eyes.

Mark eagerly grabbed it and shook, returning the grin.

"Don't die out there, okay?" Cry asked.

It was a simple request, nothing major, but still a relatively large promise. Mark wasn't sure if he could keep it, but he'd be damned if he didn't try.

If for no one else, he would do it for him.


	7. Thanks For The Memories

Cry wasn't sure what he was going to do without him.

He knew that he was going to be okay, eventually. He was going to get through this, no matter what. His wounds would heal. His heart would mend again. He would live. Everything would be alright, within time.

But right now, it hurt like a motherfucker to watch him walk away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is meant to be short. I promise that next chapter will be much longer.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys enjoy this, or at least the concept! I really do have high hopes for the future of this work! Thanks for reading!
> 
> Until next chapter,  
> -Bree


End file.
